Advances in health-related technologies, recent court rulings and emerging political trends have brought with them a quantity of life-and-death alternatives which many have under no circumstances ahead of viewed as. The looming prospect of legalized doctor-assisted suicide is 1 such selection which severely erodes the inherent value and dignity of human life. The substantially-publicized efforts of specific doctors to supply carbon monoxide poisoning or prescribe lethal drugs for their terminally ill sufferers constitute euthanasia. So might the removal of particular life-sustaining therapies from a patient who is not in a terminal condition. Euthanasia and willful suicide, in any form, are offenses against life they ought to be and are rejected by the vast majority of U.S. states.
However, people faced with these hard dilemmas need to be made conscious that there are morally-proper, life-affirming legal selections readily available to them. One particular such alternative, for Catholics and other folks, can be a “overall health care energy of lawyer” and “living will.” South Carolina State law permits you to appoint someone as your agent to make health care choices for you in the occasion you lose the capacity to choose for yourself. This appointment is executed by signifies of a “wellness care energy of lawyer” kind, a model for which can be obtained from your lawyer.
A wellness care power of attorney can be a morally and legally acceptable signifies of safeguarding your wishes, values and religious beliefs when faced with a critical illness or debilitating accident. Accordingly, for persons wishing to execute health care powers of attorney, see the following directions and guidance from the authoritative teachings and traditions of many religious faiths.
The intent of the overall health care power of attorney law is to allow adults to delegate their God-provided, legally-recognized suitable to make overall health care choices to a designated and trusted agent. The law does not intend to encourage or discourage any unique health care treatment. Nor does it legalize or market euthanasia, suicide or assisted suicide. The well being care power of attorney law allows you, or any competent adult, to designate an “agent,” such as a family members member or close buddy, to make overall health care choices for you if you drop the potential to decide for your self in the future. This is completed by completing a well being care energy of lawyer kind.
You…
o Have the suitable to make all of your personal health care decisions while capable of doing so. The well being care power of lawyer only becomes helpful when and if you turn into incapacitated by means of illness or accident.
o Have the appropriate to challenge your doctor’s determination that you are not capable of generating your personal health-related choices.
o CAN give particular instructions about your health-related therapy to your agent and can forbid your agent from generating specific remedy decisions. To do so, you simply need to have to communicate your wishes, beliefs and directions to your agent. Instructions about any certain treatment options or procedures which you desire or do not want under specific situations can also be written in your well being care power of lawyer and/or provided in a separate living will.
o Can revoke your health care power of attorney or the appointment of your agent at any time while competent.
o Could not designate as your agent an administrator or employee of the hospital, nursing home or mental hygiene facility to which you are admitted, unless they are related by blood, marriage or adoption. 1996
Your agent…
o Can commence producing decisions for you only when your medical doctor determines that you are no longer capable to make well being care decisions for your self.
o May well make any and all well being care decisions for you, such as treatment options for physical or mental situations and choices relating to life-sustaining procedures, unless you limit the energy of your agent.
o Will not have authority to make decisions about the artificial provision of nutrition and hydration (nourishment and water by means of feeding tubes) unless he or she clearly knows that these choices are in accord with your wishes about these measures.
o Is protected from legal liability when acting in superior faith.
o Will have to base his or her choices on your wishes or, if your wishes can’t be reasonably ascertained, in your “ideal interests.” The agent’s decisions will take precedence more than the choices of all other persons, regardless of family relationships.